Four times TAGB World Tae Kwon Do Champion and personal trainer, Michael Parchment, living in Norway is a keen FitLine user. As athlete and personal trainer, it is important to him what products he takes, and what products he recommends to his clients.
Michael’s curriculum is just as fascinating as it is unique. He incorporates everything a real modern world fighter amounts for.
We had the pleasure to meet him and get to know how he managed to leave the British countryside and become one of the world’s best Tae Kwon Do champions. Read here, how his passion for Tae Kwon Do taught him to follow his dreams, become the self-made man he is today and how it influences his daily work as a PM-Team Partner in Norway.
A tough childhood and strong family ties
Michael was born in England. He grew up with his mom, who emigrated from Jamaica to the UK while she was pregnant with Michael. He and his mother lived a simple life in the small town of Wolverhampton near Birmingham in the West Midlands. His family’s plan had always been to move from Jamaica to the UK to seek for a better future for their children. His mother arrived there first and his father and his siblings were supposed to follow her eventually. Unfortunately, they never succeeded. Michael was a good student. He loved math and sports and his proudest achievement back then, was to become milk monitor at his school. When he was 8 everything changed. His mom was already struggling to make month’s end, and she was forced to send Michael back to Jamaica. Life in Jamaica was nothing like what he had known from England and even though he remembers to have liked going to school, he only attended school for the first two days, because none of his family members were able to bring him there, and he had to help the family out babysitting his cousins. But eventually his mother was able to find a better paying job and she got him back to the English countryside.
“The experience of my first competition changed everything”
Back in the United Kingdom, Michael, now a rebellious adolescent, needed an outlet for his excess energy. As soon as the opportunity hit, Michael joined the Wolverhampton Judo Club. Arguably, the most successful Judo Club in the entire UK, with several Olympic gold medal winners, world champions, and European champions. Michael’s first open weight competition went terribly wrong when he encountered his second opponent that day. His name is Kenneth Brown. Today, Kenneth fights in the Black Belt Adult Male Ultra Heavy category. So, you can imagine that Michael was thrown to the ground like a rag doll. Somehow, he still ended up 3rd.
The experience of his first competition changed him forever. Not that he wanted to give up. In the contrary, actually. It made him stronger, thirsty for more, and more dedicated: “I saw these guys standing on the podium higher than me and I just knew: One day this is going to be me!”
Eventually, he got into Kung Fu and Karate for a couple of years but at least the moves he learned came in handy to protect himself against the usual bullies at school. He quit school at the age of 17 and started an apprenticeship as welder until one day he saw a Tae Kwon Do fighter on TV, performing a kick jump over a sports car. Funnily enough, this single TV spot was another defining moment of his life. Michael had found his purpose in life! Starting the next day, he was on the lookout for a Tae Kwon Do club and he found one fairly close to his neighbourhood. It quickly became a regular habit. First, twice a week, then four times, and after that nearly every day of the week. He was thirsty for medals and at the beginning he didn’t really care what kind of medal. Bronze, silver, any medal would do. But Tae Kwon Do also thought him to set goals, to get out of his comfort zone, and to always go beyond his limits.
“I wanted to win just once, and I would have been happy. Everything else was a bonus”
Deep down Michael knew that he wanted to be in the center of the attention at least once. Receiving all the fame and getting that celebrity status meant winning a gold medal! So, one day after the English Championship, he set the clear goal to win one of those gold medals for his following competition. Once he made the 1st place, he never looked back again. He started reaching all his goals he had set: getting the black belt, being nominated into the English squad, … He had to win all major black belt competitions and beat all the fighters of his weight class who were already part of the English squad. He succeeded again! After winning the national championship, Michael won the European Championship – twice! Later he became four times(!!!) Tae Kwon Do World Champion in his weight class.
Michael decided to retire from Tae Kwon Do, met his future wife and moved to Norway. He started a job as Fitness Trainer where he coached a boxing group. After his group learned about who was coaching them, many of the members actually wanted to learn Tae Kwon Do. Michael was happy to help! He set the goal to make them successfully participate in competitions and he actually managed to coach all 12 members of his group to win a medal in the upcoming competitions. This arrangement went on until the World Championship came up and his pupils convince Michael to take part as a fighter one last time. To his own surprise he won his 4th World Champion title – this time under the flag of his new home, Norway.
Tae Kwon Do was getting me ready for network marketing and when PM-International came along I just knew I could be successful at it: Tae Kwon Do helped me to work towards fulfilling my dream of becoming the best fighter and becoming world champion, but also that takes a great deal of hard work, commitment and sacrifice. He knew these attributes that he had learned by doing Tae Kwon Do would help him succeed at PM-International. He wanted financial freedom for himself and his family so he can spend more time helping those who can’t help themselves. PM-international and FitLine, for him had opened the doors to new and wonderful opportunities which were not available to him before, and helped him to start dreaming big again.
Watch his Interview video now and find out about his favorite products, why and how he uses Restorate and his commitment to clean competition: